


Blank Slate

by muaaimoi



Category: The Big Bang Theory (TV)
Genre: F/M, Memory Loss, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-12
Updated: 2013-11-12
Packaged: 2018-01-01 06:21:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1041388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muaaimoi/pseuds/muaaimoi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things aren’t what they seem, but who cares when you can’t remember any of it anyway? At least they have each other. Right? Shenny as always. Confusing premise is hopefully less confusing at the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blank Slate

**1.**

She wakes up in a hospital room.

The space is barren and uniform white. It made her think of jail cells, and asylums. For a moment she’s sure that she’s gone insane. The straight jacket fashioned around her shoulders only reinforces the idea. Her body aches. Not the familiar raw nerve endings of a hangover, but the old ache of too many soft ball drills and not enough stretching. She doesn’t know how she’s so familiar with the pain, she can’t remember playing a game in her life.

"Hello." She calls out. Her voice comes out rough, almost gone. It hurts like she’s been cheering her lungs out. Another sense memory out of left field because she can’t remember ever cheering. She can’t remember anything." There’s been a mistake. I’m not crazy!"

At least she doesn’t think she is. Crazy people don’t know they’re crazy though, do they? She’s just so confused. It’s hard to think. She doesn’t know where she is, or how she got there, but she’s not crazy. Or at least, probably not crazy. She might have a better idea about it all if she could remember more important things, like her name.

"Hello?" She tries again. No one answers. She tries moving. It hurts, dear god it hurts, the movement must jostle something important because she has to stop to breathe for a moment. It’s hard to focus through the pain, but she is finding that she is nothing if not stubborn, so she forces herself mostly upright.

She tries to rise further, but the straps stemming from the straightjacket seem to be strategically secured to the railings of the bed.

"Help." she whispers. She needs help, or at least drugs to numb the pain. She takes a moment to gather herself, strengthen her lungs."Someone! Anybody, please, help!"

She tastes salt and realizes she’s crying. But the knowledge barely registers. It’s hard to think. She’s barely conscious of the words coming out of her mouth, and by the time she tunes in, she no longer knows what she’s saying. It’s just muscle memory, something she’s probably used to screaming.

"Help!"

Maybe she has gone crazy after all. But it’s probably just wishful thinking. She doesn’t even know herself, she definitely doesn’t know anyone will come for her. Let alone help her. But she keeps shouting. She’s stubborn, and something about it seems vitally important.

Besides, it’s better than doing nothing.

**2.**

He needs to find a woman.

The woman is blonde with green eyes. Her name is Penny. She made him promise.

It is all he knows. That is the singular memory that he has managed to hold onto. He holds it in his minds eye, concentrates on the memory with every fiber of his being. He can’t afford to lose this too. It’s all he has left. He doesn’t know his name, or where he is, or what he’s doing bound to a hospital bed. But he remembers Penny’s hands nearly breaking the bones of his own with the strength of her grip. Remembers hiding in the closet. Knowing they were minutes away from being caught yet again. That bit had been important, it meant he’d nearly managed to escaped with Penny before. The only logical action to be taken was to keep his promise. To find this Penny and hope she knew more about the place and his troubling lack of memory than he did. The thought filled him with hope as he tested his restraints. His breath caught as he felt something sharp dig carefully into his thigh. Just close enough to his hand that he could wrap the tips of his fingers around it.

Good. It was nice to know that he was the type to plan ahead. That was sensible, and smart. And if he was any of those things then it was best that he find Penny quickly. Nothing could be more important if that was the one memory he’d managed to keep. He just had to find Penny. That would make everything better. It had to.

If nothing else it would mean keeping his promise. He wants to be someone who keeps his promises.

**3.**

Penny sighed as she clutched Bernadette’s lunch. She was beginning to regret bullying Sheldon into coming inside with her. Sure the paranoid twitching was fun at first, but after his fifth violent flinch had knocked him into a door, she’d begun to feel bad about it. That was always her problem with Sheldon. She never seemed to find the line between poking some fun at him and torturing him. It was the same way when she tried to be nice. She never knew of she was being a good, reasonably helpful friend or coddling the man child beyond all good sense. Sheldon was very confusing that way.

She gripped his elbow, turning them around.”I think it’s this way. Come on.”

"Surely there is a map somewhere." Sheldon said, pulling them left when she’d been trying to steer them right." I can’t be forced to rely on you of all people to navigate this chemical cesspit! You’ve never been here before either."

Penny held back another sigh. She had no one to blame but herself.

**4.**

"We are so lost." Penny commented as she leaned against the wall. Sheldon ignored her as he dug into his pocket for some change. They’d run into a vending machine and their attempts to find Bernadettes office had left him thirsty. He silently damned the security guards that were currently holding their phones hostage. He also damned Penny and her threat of ordering Thai food on their next wednesday pizza night. She always knew that would drive him to distraction, cunning opponent that she was. He briefly considered getting some payback but rationalized that a full confrontation may not be worth Penny’s wrath. But perhaps he wouldn’t stock any Ben and Jerry’s in the fridge next week when Penny was due to begin her cycle.

Sheldon was distracted from his thoughts of petty vengeance by a blaring klaxon.

"I knew I should have waited in the car." He muttered resentfully.

**5.**

"I’m Leonard. I’m your boyfriend." A guy with glasses is saying.

Penny blinks at him in disbelief. The word boyfriend brings up pictures of other guys. Tall, chiseled bodies that make her mouth water. Hot guys. The short dude in glasses before her doesn’t compute.

"Are you sure?" Penny can’t help but ask. She can’t wrap her mind around dating a guy she’s clearly not attracted to.

"Look. We’ve been together for years. Bernadettes team is working really hard to make the antidote for the infection. We’re going to get you your memory back Penny."

Penny sighs. She feels tired, sick. And she can’t remember how she got here. The place is blindingly kind of room dedicated tv watching has assured her are for inmates or insane asylums. She looks at the guy again. Wonders if he’s not feeding her some lie now that she doesn’t know better. A muted shriek from a nearby room distracts her with it’s familiarity.

"Sheldon?" Penny says slowly. Except that she isn’t really asking. Tall texan, crazy scientist. Big blue eyes. She has no idea where she knows him from, but she knows that’s who it is. There’s a vague impression of another guy, short like the guy at the foot of her bed, but she can’t remember more than a blurry silhouette. She tries to remember, she does, but the thought fades. Until she’s not sure she even remembered something in the first place.

The short guy with the glasses, maybe Leo or something, Penny has already forgotten his name, glares past the walls.”Why do you remember him and not me? I’m your boyfriend! I even said hi to you first.”

The guy is really annoying. He’s totally whining at her, when, according to him, she’s sick. No way would she ever date someone like him. He has to be lying, the creep.

**6.**

There is a woman in glasses, scrubs, and a lab coat standing beside them. Her name-tag reads , and she’s resting a hand familiarly on his shoulder. The contact was in place before he gained consciousness and Sheldon does not appreciate it. He enjoys his personal space and informs her as such. He then demands the reason he has been hospitalized. He’s highly distressed to find that he can’t remember. That implies cranial impact and brain damage. Except that he isn’t hooked up to any drips or machines and he can feel all of his extremities without any discomfort. He doesn’t understand what’s happening.

The distressed sound he makes at learning he’s been infected with a virus that is barring him from his memory is completely appropriate. He doesn’t appreciate the Doctor’s insistence that he is overreacting and that they are close to finding a cure. She refuses to show him the chemical composition of the Virus. Attempts to distract him with fanciful lies about their relationship. Claims to be his girlfriend of all things. As if Sheldon would ever bother engaging in coitus with a woman when he can give himself as many orgasms as he requires. Even the thought of engaging in procreative sex seems pointless when in vitro fertilization is an option. There is no reason for him to have a girlfriend, and he doesn’t like being lied to.

"Do you even have an MD?" Sheldon question when he realizes could simply be another PhD holder.

"I’m a neurologist." She replies, and then proceeds with her useless prattle. "You’ll have your memories back soon Sheldon."

He narrows his eyes at her. Looks carefully at the facility he’s being held in. She had claimed it to be quarantined. But the door is open and the Doctor isn’t wearing a hazmat suit.

It’s the small discrepancies that stand out. The lack of other personnel and proper medical equipment. He’s been to hospitals plenty of times before. His childhood had been littered with his brothers sports injuries. Aside from the infection that’s making it impossible for him to remember how he’d landed himself in the facility in the first place, the woman’s claims seem false.

Especially the claims of being his significant other. Nothing seemed right. Was he being held here against his will? Had he been infected in order to reprogram his mind? Wield his intellect for their own gain? It was entirely possible. He had to escape.

**7.**

"This is a terrible idea." Sheldon says, eyeing the tattoo artist nervously."We could contract hepatitis."

"This is a great idea." Penny counters, meeting his eyes squarely. Sheldon looks away first. He knows Penny’s right. She never wants to forget her name again. Those first weeks, when Penny didn’t fit. When Sheldon said her name and she had to remind herself the consonants and syllables he’d strung together where supposed to represent her.

If the people that were holding them ever find them again. If she wakes up in another hospital bed when she’s been made to forget. She wants to have her name. And having it inscribed in her skin seems like the best way to achieve that.

The needle touches her skin and Penny hisses. It hurts like a son of a bitch. But it’s worth the pain. She wants to lay the fear of forgetting herself to rest. She’s always looking over her shoulder, waiting for the other shoe to drop. She can’t seem to really enjoy anything when she’s just waiting for it to end. Waiting to forget. It’s no way to live.

The tattoo artist begins on the second letter and Penny bites back a whimper. Sheldon shuffles closer. Rocking on his heels the way he does when he wants to help but can’t figure out how. It’s sort of cute. His hand brushes her right arm and Penny captures his fingers with her own. She focuses on the warmth trapped between their palms instead of the pain.

It helps. Remembering that she has Sheldon always helps.

**8.**

"I change my mind." Sheldon says. Then tattoo needle had only just turned on and is readily flicked off.

The tattoo artist sighs in what Sheldon assumes is frustration. He can’t truly blame the man. This is the seventh time he has changed his mind. From starting with ‘this example of a genius homosapien is called Sheldon’, winding down to ’ this vessel belongs to Sheldon’. Penny giggles from her place on the chair.

She smiles at him, wide and warm, and he feels sure of himself when he classifies the expression as fond. Penny is the only other person he has ever been sure of. The only other person he can even begin to comprehend.

"You make everything too complicated." She says, fingers tracing the edges of her new bandage.

He thinks about the simple font he’d chosen, the way the letters would sting their way into his skin until the day he died. The fear that drives the words he wants etched inside himself. But the surface of the skin will have to suffice.

"Very well." Sheldon says, offering his forearm once again."I suppose a simple ‘Sheldon’ will do."

He can’t help but cry out when the process begins. His pain threshold is remarkably low for someone who was held in a secret government experimenting facility. Penny’s hand finds his own, and he comes to understand why she’d held his own.

**9.**

"So it’s not even contagious?" Penny asks from her seat on the hospital bed. So far there’s been a lot of science talk that’s gone over her head. But from what she gets, she’d found herself at the wrong place, at the wrong time with Sheldon in tow, and now she’s got some sort of super mono, or something like that.

The Doctor nods and Penny breathes a sigh of relief.

"That’s irrelevant!" Sheldon shouts beside her."We’re infected woman! We could be experiencing horrible symptoms shortly. Diarrhea, migraines, retching, to name a few!"

Penny scrunches up her nose. She’d been terrified at first, but she feels fine. Bernadette’s been down to promise that the worst Penny will get is a fever and sinus swelling. They’ll live, it’s not like they contracted something lethal. Thank everything holy. Bernadette said they were only a few floors away from where they stored the anthrax.

"We will of course provide accommodations for your stay." The Doctor was quick to point out. Another attempt to pacify Sheldon that wouldn’t work. "Think of it as a paid vacation."

At least the settlement they got for not suing the company was very, very nice. Almost made being stuck in a room with a hysteric Sheldon worth it. She side eyed the squawking scientist.

"I can get my own room right?"

The Doctor shot her a look of deep sympathy.”I will be sure to call and ask if that can be arranged.”

**10.**

"It’s just an infection Sheldon." Amy said, attempting to minimize the scope of the situation yet again.

"Yes, just a genetically modified infection that has never been introduced into someone bio chemistry before! I’m so incredibly silly to worry about the possible symptoms! That was sarcasm!"

Amy sighs, “It’s not a real viral strain, just a test of some building blocks, you would have never gotten sick in the first place if Doctor Porter hadn’t panicked about the gas and opened the door. It’ll just take a few days to flush from your system and if it’s stubborn then we’ll have the lab produce some antibodies specifically for it. It’s not a big deal!”

"Not a big deal?" Sheldon scoffed." Penny and I could be experience horrible symptoms shortly. Diarrhea, migraines, retching, to name a few!"

Penny rolled her eyes. “You said that already.”

Sheldon stared at her incredulously.”I did no such thing!”

"Ok, maybe not those exact words," Amy permitted."But you already listed those possible symptoms."

Sheldon crossed his arms.”I do not appreciate being mocked about the seriousness of my illness, Amy.”

"We’re not messing with you Sheldon." Penny said, "You totally said that already!"

"I have an eidetic memory." Sheldon told them slowly."If I had already said it, then I would remember it. Ergo, you are mocking me!"

Amy stared at them in horror.”Unless memory loss is a symptom of the infection.”

**11.**

Penny was dying her hair brown. She’d watched mournfully as her blonde hair disappeared under the hair dye.

"I hate this." She admitted quietly to Sheldon as he helped her towel off the excess."What if I forget I’m blonde somehow?"

"I imagine your roots would show soon enough. That is, if you had truly been blonde in the first place." Sheldon attempted to comfort. He wasn’t very good at it."It’s not as though the dye is permanent Penny. It’s just for a time while we lay low."

"Oh, I’m a real blonde." She’d checked."What color are we dying yours?"

"Brown as well." Sheldon replied."I’ll use whatever’s left over, I don’t believe we can afford another bottle."

Penny sighs, being on the run is exhausting. Cheap motels and fake credit cards. They only run into cash when Penny feels brave enough to steal from drunk people in the motel parking spots.

"We will need to create new identities soon. Have you thought of a last name?" Sheldon asked.

Penny hums,”I’m thinking Wright. W-R-I-G-H-T. You know, since Sheldon and Penny don’t feel quite…”Her hand danced through the air in frustration.

"Quite what?"

"Right! Geez, your not very good at the whole speaking thing are you?" Penny sighed. She’d spent most of their time together pointing out the obvious to him. It’s like no one had taught him how to act like a normal person. Or maybe he’s just forgotten how. She shuddered in horror at the thought. Wasn’t forgetting themselves bad enough?

"Au contraire, I find the manner in which I speak to be very direct, efficient, and accurate." Sheldon huffed.

"Too specific, efficient, and accurate. Normal people don’t talk like that. We’d stand out more if people noticed." Penny said.

Sheldon frowned.”Then I suppose it’s fortunate I have you to perform most of our social interactions. Thankfully I have other talents.”

She nods, smiling.”Good thing you knew how to hot-wire cars.”

It’s how they’ve been getting around. Sheldon doesn’t remember how to act like a human being, but he remembers a bunch of technical stuff, whatever he types into their laptop always seems awfully important. It’s a good thing he fails at the little things; driving, shopping, dressing himself like a regular guy. Penny can do all those things well enough. It makes her feel needed. She’d hate being on the run and feeling useless.

Their situation is bad enough as it is.

**12.**

Sheldon is grateful to have Penny.

She knows how to blend in, how to talk to people like she’s one of them. He knows that without her he would have been caught that first day. He’s not certain that without the memory of her, her strength, her bravery, he would have ever made it out of the hospital bed.

He had been right all along. Penny made everything okay, made things better. His new identity as Sheldon Wright would succeed so long as he had Penny beside him.

"It’s also a good thing we will be pretending to be a married couple then." Sheldon mused aloud."No one will question our living arrangements, or constant need to interact then."

The first motel they’d booked double beds for had left them both exhausted. Neither had been able to sleep. Constantly waking up terrified, having dreams of being caught again. Of being made to forget themselves. Being alone again. Abandoned to the dark.

It’s just easier to share a bed. To clutch at each other in order to stave off the nightmares. Distract themselves with foreign heartbeats late into the night until the steady rhythm became familiar. He doesn’t want to lose that.

"Pretend?"Penny asks, and Sheldon looks up from his research of how to create their new identities to find that she’s moved closer. She shuffles over to sit beside him, shoulders touching and Sheldon finds himself fascinated by the new contrast between the darkness of her hair and the color of her eyes. They seem even greener somehow.

"We’ll need rings."Sheldon murmured absently.

Penny smiled, slow and soft, and something about the expression was so devastatingly lovely that it made it hard to think.

"If you put a ring on my finger I don’t want to pretend. I want to be together for real."

Sheldon blinked,”We’re always together. How can being together be fal-“

Penny’s lips brushed against his own and,  _oh!_

**13.**

Penny didn’t know where the hell she was and that was scary. It was dark, and there was a curtain around her. The kind you saw in hospitals. Was she sick? She felt a little sore, but she felt perfectly fine otherwise. She stood looking around. It was utterly empty.

"Hello."She called. Wandering into the hall."Anyone here?"

"Shhh."Someone hissed beside her and Penny yelped, hand lashing out instinctively and catching whoever it was across the face. It was a guy, tall, and dark haired, she couldn’t make out the rest of his features.

"Damn it! Devil woman. Haven’t you done enough?" The guy whispered shouted.

"What are you talking about?" Penny whispered back."Do you know where we are? Why do we have to be quiet?"

"I am on a stealth mission to answer those very questions." The guy rubbed absently at his cheek. Penny couldn’t see whether or not she’d left a mark in the low lighting."You hit very hard. I suppose I could use some muscle on this excursion. Who are you?"

"Penny."She replied. It was ridiculous, the thought of sneaking around to find out where they were when they could just ask some like normal people. Except, except the whole situation seemed crazy anyway. How could she not know where she was? At least the way this guy was going about finding out seemed kinda fun. Speaking of the guy,"What’s your name anyway?"

He startled her by holding out a hand.”Sheldon, Sheldon Cooper.”

Penny smiled as she shook it.”Very Bond. Like very James Bond.”

**14.**

He was almost certain they were being held in a clinic of sorts. There wasn’t enough security to rate a hospital. He would have called it a simple office building if he hadn’t woken up in a curtained off hospital bed, and yet they were not bound or under watch. It was confusing.

He was also certain they had been drugged. He could not remember how he’d come to be at the clinic and he couldn’t recall a time when his memory had been so fallible. But he was missing crucial evidence and every scientist knew better than to make solid conclusions from incomplete data. Sheldon had been a real scientist by age five.

He tried the fifteenth door in a row. Locked, just like all the others. How were they supposed to find answers when he was barred from all information?”This is rapidly becoming very vexing.”

"Boring too."Penny chimed from her place beside him, running a hand through her hair."Wait a minute!"

"Not so loud."Sheldon whispered furiously."What is it?"

"I have a bobby pin." Penny declared. As if it mattered. His companion was rather inane it seemed.

"What is your point?"Sheldon asked, befuddled.

"I guess I said that wrong."Penny said."I meant I have a lock-pick, move over."

Sheldon moved aside, watching his cohort pry open the bobby pin and jam it into the lock. She fiddled for a bit, crouched over the door knob until Sheldon heard a distinct click. The door slowly swung open.

Penny smiled.”Ta-da~”

"I certainly made a phenomenal choice in minions." Sheldon said, feeling pleased with himself, and wondering if Penny had a criminal past.

"What did you just call me?"

**15.**

"What do you mean I"m going to start forgetting?" Penny demanded." I thought that was just Sheldon being crazy. Sheldon is crazy remember? We all agreed. Or are you infected too? Did you forget that?"

"Just calm down Penny!" Bernadette tried to soothe." I’m going to head the team researching this alright? We’re just going to take a sample and run some tests. we’ll have a cure for this little bug in a few days."

It wasn’t working.

"And I’m supposed to be okay with forgetting until then? Two hours and there goes every memory of my grandma. Six and I can’t remember how to handle a gun anymore. Twelve, goodbye parents, I can’t remember if I ever had any!"

"You are being over dramatic!" Bernadette exclaimed.

"Over dramatic?"Penny snarled." I’m forgetting things. I might forget everything. I might not even remember myself!"

**16.**

Sheldon thought about everything he knew about memory. Super memory especially. There was nothing the human brain retained better than trauma. Fear, anger, rage. The uglier sides of human nature. And that might be everything that was left of him by the end of the disease. Things, perhaps people he regarded with strong emotional attachments might last longer, but he knew better than to hope.

He wouldn’t remember baking cookies with mew-maw, or having his mother read to him, watching Star-Trek. Instead he’d be stuck remembering pop-pos funeral. His parents screaming at each other. His father back handing his brother that one time in a drunken rage. He imagined the episodic memories would be the first to go. The everyday things.

Eating breakfast, watching Doctor Who, standing before his whiteboard, both at home and at the university. There was so much he would never know he had lost. More than most other humans ever learned, certainly, but his ability to change the world, to make it a better place, that would be gone.

Amy was speaking to him, the doctors who’s name he’d already forgotten chiming in periodically.

Sheldon ignored them. Focusing instead on every good memory he could dredge up. They would be gone soon enough. The brain couldn’t delete a memory while it was still being processed. If he was to be stuck with only one last memory he wanted it to be a good one.

**17.**

Their apartment sucked. The best part about it was that no one looked too closely at their falsified documents and no one expected them to get too friendly with their neighbors. Also, rent was dirt cheap.

Penny could take one look at her ring and be happy anyway.

It wasn’t the most expensive ring in the world. Sheldon had bought in on false credit and she honestly still wasn’t a hundred percent sure it was real gold, but it sure as hell meant that she was miss Penny wright and that made it more valuable than if it had real diamonds.

Multiple diamonds at that.

Penny made herself busy bartending at clubs. Her lack of memory about her past did not extend to her knowledge of all things tasty and alcoholic, not to mention how to make them. She liked working at night. Sheldon was usually up by the time he got home, something about hacking being traditionally done in the dead of night. They’d count her tips together and fall asleep in each others arms.

But her favorite days where her days off. Sheldon made his own hours, so they could lie in bed together all day. Exploring their bodies together. Sheldon had completely caught her by surprise the first time he had made her cum. It had been delightful, amazing, and satisfying in a way Penny couldn’t put into words.

Sometimes she still caught herself wondering who she had been. But the person she was now was learning to be happy with just being herself.

**18.**

Tracing his name had become a habit. Sheldon found himself reaching for the reassurance of the ink multiple times a day. Especially when Penny was at work. Her absence seemed to sit like a physical ache in his chest. Sometimes he thought about the ease with which Penny made her way in the words, and he worried.

Penny was much more attractive than most females, more capable as well. He still didn’t know what she found so appealing about him as a mate, but he remained thankful. He was careful to mask his online presence to the best of his ability. Constantly searched for ways to make their existence perfectly legal. To make them safer.

If not for the personal leeway and lucrative nature of the work he would have stopped hacking in order not to endanger them. News of their escape was still prominent in California. They had been reported as a missing professor and waitress respectively, but Sheldon didn’t trust the information for a heartbeat.

He hated explaining things. He’d attempted, the one time Penny had asked, but they had both agreed that it was best they each stuck to their area of expertise. While the thought of waitressing would suit Penny, her patience for people was rather remarkable, she was not the type to wait tables for minimum wage. Not when she could make more bartending.

When he thought about her smile, the happiness they found together, then he reached for his wedding ring. Sometimes he thought about saving up enough money for a better ring, a real wedding. Or at least a real honeymoon. Sometimes he thought about how happy that would make Penny, and he planned.

**19.**

"Promise me." Penny hissed, green eyes trained on his own."You have to find me. Slip the scalpel into your pocket, don’t resist, I’ll distract them. Just promise me you’ll find me."

Penny squared her shoulders, readying herself to attack the guards. She had to cause a commotion, big enough so that no one strip searched Sheldon. He’d done enough. Setting the alarm, rigging the doors to open for them when the time came.

Making a scene, she could do that much.

**20.**

He would not forget. So long as they lived, they had a chance to escape. His memory was a little better than Penny’s. It was his job to remember.

So he closed his eyes. Captured her image behind his eyelids and focused on the memory of what just happened with all that he had. No matter what happened, he must not forget.

He would find her. They would escape their prison. Hide in whatever world existed beyond the whitewashed walls. They could do it. The two of them together could do anything.

"I promise." Sheldon swore. He meant every word.

**x**


End file.
